Mary Oliver

The introduction to Mary Oliver's work in VBCAP remarks on American nature poets being naturalists trying to get to the root of things- to come to a comprehensive understanding of natural and/or worldly phenomena, to understand, to "know". Kate, I'm fairly sure you made reference to Mark Strand's fearless attention to detail in a conversation we had earlier this week, and I'm just thinking of that phrase as well suited towards the naturalist mission. In order to know something, this kind of paying attention is what pays off. One of my favorite bits of wisdom from Oliver is that, "to pay attention, this is our endless and proper work." To pay attention, to relinquish our fear of detail. . . and suddenly I am brought back to the famous opening lines of Robert Frost's "Directive", "Back out of all this now too much for us, back in a time made simple by the loss of detail". What significance do these lines carry in the context of this naturalist notion of a kind of ultimate knowledge arising from the close attention to the world around us? Frost's lines convey a longing to escape this kind of paying attention. In my own life, I understand why one might want to get back to a simplicity that does not require the perspicacity that fearless attention of details asks of us. . . a place of rest and restoration rather than duty and action, making out the connections between everything.
I love the image of the tree being eternally opened by lightning in "Rain", the way it is described as a "yellow thread" descending from the sky. Although this short poem only captures a moment, without paying attention, the careful verbal construction of this moment would be lost. The idea of lightning as thread evokes a sense of the sky and the earth, which we typically see as disparate, coming together as two pieces of fabric held together by a single golden thread.
One of my favorite themes in Oliver's work is that of acceptance. Her work also embodies the idea of letting go rather than giving up and is evidenced by her meditative way of asking questions that don't require urgent answers, as in "The Swamp 2", her visions of stillness in the face of death in the third section of the poem, and the delightful scarcity of words inherent to "At the Edge of the Ocean" and "The Garden". This exploration of the natural ebbs and flows in rhythm nicely demonstrates that there is no single way to write poetry or explore the world. I also love that she often repeats phrases and questions multiple times. For me, it continues to demonstrate an acceptance that being present in the world does not mean going at the same pace all the time. We may never receive answers to many of the questions we ask, but there is a great deal to be learned simply by the asking.